Williamo’s Blog.

Another Abstract, originally uploaded by William WM.

Continuing the thread of blog posts related to disabling/un-annoyifying (yep, I made that up) Windows Vista and it’s UAC, here’s a way to really, really disable the UAC nag and get yourself real Administrator access like in Windows XP prior versions:

1. Open “gpedit.msc”
   (I’ve already followed these steps on my computer, so notice that the Run dialog has the note “This task will be created with administrative privileges.”)
   
2. Once in Group Policy Editor, navigate to the following tree item:
   Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options
   
3. Open the item “User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode” and choose the option “Elevate without prompting”
   
4. Click OK and close Group Policy Editor.

You should be able to run programs with Administrator privileges by default. Granted, this is less secure, but that’s the way Windows has always been.

(BTW, the original, older version of this post from Beta/RC versions of Vista can be found here: Vista Administrator Access Howto)

This article is pretty short, but I’ll try not to quote the whole thing verbatim, so you actually have a reason to check out the link I’m posting. =)

Open up Control Panel, and type in “UAC” into the search box. You’ll see a link for “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off”:

On the next screen you should uncheck the box for “Use User Account Control (UAC)”, and then click on the OK button.

…Well, damn, that was pretty much the whole thing. Go check it out anyway. =)

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-control-uac-the-easy-way-on-windows-vista/

Color Mash, originally uploaded by William WM.

Along the same lines as the last post, here’s how to run a shortcut as Administrator either on-demand, or by default.

1. On-Demand

This one is pretty straightforward - right-click on any shortcut and choose “Run as Administrator”

2. By Default

A little more complicated, but only just a bit…

1. Open the shortcut’s properties dialog.
   
2. Choose the shortcut tab, then click “Advanced…”
   
3. Check “Run as administrator”
   
4. Hit OK on each of the dialogs to close them.

Now, this shortcut will always run in an Administrator role, similar to su or sudo on Unix/Linux.

There ye be. =)

Now that I’ve finally made the leap to install Windows Vista on my home computer, I thought it might be useful to dig through some old (and new) guides to keep Vista from annoying me as much as it did when I first tried it out in beta. Luckily, things are going much more smoothly this time. Here’s a helpful tip from the How-To Geek about how to run a command as an Administrator from the Vista Run box.

FYI: The Run option is not enabled by default on the Start Menu. You’ll either need to open it by using the Win + R key combination or by enabling it through the Taskbar Properties, using the steps below:

1. Right click on the taskbar, then choose properties.
2. Once in the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, click the “Start Menu” tab, then click “Customize…”
3. Scroll down to the “Run command” option, and check it.
4. Close the dialog.

Now, you’ll have the “Run…” command back in your Start Menu, but it’s worth noting that the newer Vista “Start Search” bar is a lot more versatile than the older “Run…” command. In either case, from “Start Search” or from “Run…”, the following steps will help you to run a command as an administrator (from How-To Geek):

To try this out, go to the run box and type in something (cmd, for example)

Now instead of hitting the Enter key, use Ctrl+Shift + Enter. You will be prompted with the obnoxious User Account Control dialog… but it will then open up a command prompt in Administrator mode.

(full quoted article via: Run a Command as Administrator from the Windows Vista Run box)

There ye be. =)

Great article from WebUrbanist about abandoned places and websites related to these abandonments…

What is it about abandoned places, frozen in time, that makes them seem more real than any other representation of history we encounter? From individual structures to entire communities, abandonments large and small inspire the imagination and tell us things about the past in a visceral way. Capturing moments in time, deserted cities, towns, buildings and other abandoned property can be powerfully evocative. Many people break laws, trespass on private property and risk life and limb to explore and photograph abandoned places.

(continue reading at: Abandoned Cities, Places and Property | WebUrbanist)

Shadowplay, originally uploaded by William WM.

This is excellent advice, and good fun, at that! About a year ago, I offered up the idea of the money-free weekend:

For the last few months, my wife and I have been doing something every other weekend or so that we call a “money free” weekend, in an effort to live more frugally. It’s actually quite fun - here’s how we do it. We are not allowed to spend any money on anything, no matter what. In other words, we can’t make a run to the store to buy food, we can’t spend money on any sort of entertainment, and so on. Since we often do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, on a “money free” weekend, we delay it to Monday or Tuesday. We can use our utilities, but no extra expenses on these utilities. No renting movies on cable, no text messages that aren’t already covered by our cell phone plan, and so on.

I followed this up with fifteen things to do during such a weekend, fifteen more things to do, and fifteen deeply fulfilling things to do during such a weekend. Since then, lots of people have sent me ideas for activities for money-free weekends, plus we’ve uncovered a bunch of our own. At the same time, many readers have asked for a master list of all of these ideas. So, here we go - one hundred fun ways to spend a money free weekend. The list below includes the first forty-five (with duplicates removed), plus about sixty new ones. Print this off and use it as a checklist or a thumbnail guide for your own money-free weekend. Please note that everyone’s interests are different - you probably won’t find everything on this list fun and neither will someone else, but the two lists won’t overlap (I can think of countless things other people find fun that I find utterly dreadful). Anyway, here goes! (continued at The Simple Dollar)

Wild Fish!, originally uploaded by William WM.

Now here’s a Robocop remake I could actually get behind (though I really do still love Paul Verhoeven’s original version - not so much Robocop 2 or Robocop 3):

Beaks here…

If Bloody-Disgusting is correct, and Darren Aronofsky’s “rebuild” of ROBOCOP is actually a sequel set twenty years “after the termination of the Robocop program”, then forget all that whinging over the sacredness of Paul Verhoeven’s original. If ROBOCOP 3 couldn’t tarnish that fucker, nothin’ can.

Though it’s a little disappointing that they’ve (allegedly) opted to move the series from Detroit to Los Angeles (especially when it’d be incredibly affordable to shoot in the actual confines of the Motor City nowadays), I’m cool with anything that allows Aronofsky to put his own stamp on the established mythology of the character (and let’s pretend that this “established mythology” begins and ends with the first movie, okay?). According to Bloody Disgusting, talks between MGM and the director are fairly advanced. Perhaps Sony will have an announcement ready for their Saturday panel at Comic Con.

(via: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37510)

Nuts Commercial Inadvertantly Hilarious | Advertising Humor, Video Humor, WTF?! | gigglesugar - Funny Videos & Humor..

Bootneuter 2.0 from iphonedev on Vimeo.

blog.iphone-dev.org | Flash! A demonstration of BootNeuter 2.0 running….

And…awesome. =)

(Update: Damn it, WordPress doesn’t support Vimeo either.)

Neatorama » Blog Archive » TV Dinner.

Simon Tofield has a new animation featuring his irresistible cat. My personal cat does the same lap thing while I’m on the computer. Previously at Neatorama: Cat Man Do and Let Me In! Tofield is an animator at Tandem Films, where I found out that Cat Man Do won the prize for Best Comedy at the British Animation Awards. -via Metafilter

I’d quote the article, but the picture is really all you need.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/17/windows-3-1-gets-installed-on-nokias-n810-looks-badly-out-of-p/